Mini-fashionista

Joining in with Owlet.
M, wearing her red coat inside out as a cape. shows off the sparkly lining.

Outside

Me. No-one else. P has technological things to deal with which means my hopes of dragging the two small people out into the natural light and bird calls are dashed. I can lead by example sure, but I'm not the only example. So the iPad wins. At least right now.
Eating...P's sourdough toast with local marmalade
Drinking...coffee of course
Reading...homeschooling message boards and occasionally Waldorf blogs that drown me in inadequacy until I discover the punitive discipline and think our technology filled chaotic lives aren't so bad after all
Listening...to the bird calls in our peaceful backyard.

On sleeping, toddler messes and adventures

High Needs

I have a lot to say (write/post/blog), mostly about my eldest child. I start a million blog posts a day about her. I'm just so gosh darn confused by her really I am. I first read the term "high needs baby" when she was only a few weeks old and thought how awful that was since I couldn't imagine any baby requiring more from it's caregivers than mine did and therefore "high needs" sounded like hell on earth. It took me until she was 12 months old, yes, an entire year to realise she actually was high needs. I looked at a similar aged baby one day happily cooing in it's pram and realised that there was a possibility that child was not just pretending to be happy there because it had been tortured by being left screaming in the pram until it realised it wasn't going to be picked up. A possibility that that particular baby might just maybe possibly have been naturally ok with not being constantly held. That did my head in. I honestly thought up until that moment that all non-attachment parents were baby torturers. I really did. Because that's what it would have been to M for us to parent any differently.
The thing is, before I had that realisation I also had a niggling little thought hidden deep within that I was somehow failing at motherhood. That because I found my baby so hard that I was somehow lacking.
What I've realised in the last week is that although they've changed a lot at the age of not-quite-five-years, those high needs haven't gone away like I thought they had. No, they haven't gone anywhere at all. That niggling little shameful thought though, it's come back with a vengeance. Go away little thought! I am not failing because our days are hard sometimes. I am not failing because I'm not a perfect unschooler nor am I failing because I'm not a perfect Waldorf mother or a rigorous classical homeschooler. I am also not failing because I sometimes contemplate trying to fit those or any other labels, sometimes think a formula would make it easier.
She is hard work. I am hard work. Life is hard work. That's ok.

Blue Mountains Food Co-op 30th Birthday

This was meant to be just a short sojourn in our Saturday but both children had such a marvelous time we ended up staying around 7 hours I think.

Home again

and peaceful. Travel was peaceful, home is peaceful. Strange (to me at least) but true. Parents and children meditation tomorrow. Grand.

Metamorphosis

Holding the space for a few more weeks...

There's a bed in my loungeroom

and this feels very strange. It's not a temporary, set-up for welcome (or less welcome) visitors. It's a new permanent feature. It's actually a kind of chair/day-bed. Never the less right now it looks a lot like a bed to me and I find it weirdly disturbing.

Jammin'

P made his second batch of Cloud Garden raspberry jam today (although apparently the Cloud Garden has changed it's name, I'm not sure what to - I couldn't read the handwriting) after a very productive picking session with some visitors from Sydney.
The children weren't so pleased about the trip to the garden today - although they both enjoyed a duck & chicken hunting expedition. It ended up being rather fun for them though, when we were leaving V & S's ute got mightily, inextricably bogged. This necessitated a trip to the owner's house, a ride back to the ute in the back of the owner's 4WD ute and joy of all joys, a chance to sit on the tractor for each of them. The ease with which that old tractor pulled the ute out of the mud and up the hill was almost comical, it might as well have been pulling a feather. V took pictures of M on the tractor pretending she was the one who pulled them out of the mud. I hope she emails them.
That's all folks. Raspberry jam on fresh sourdough for breakfast for them and on left-over gluten-free kefir pancakes for me.

Having doubts

About homeschooling or maybe about natural learning. Not the cliched "She wont learn if I don't teach her" kind but more the (also cliched) "I don't have the patience for that" kind. Sigh. Guess I'll have to get it though because she most adamantly (tearfully) DOES. NOT.  want to go to school.
What do I need? More rhythm? More space (alone time)? More purpose (my own music)? Or just to put it out there that today was a hard day ;)

India again

Maybe as soon as January. Really. Or maybe not.
Who knows.

Snow Goddess

Deprived of childcare

Apparently my children are. This is the creche at the sports centre which also houses "Kids Kingdom" (cheesy play centre). There are little cars to ride in, huge slides, tunnels and trampolines but what are my children fascinated with? The mini-prison...

Jiggetty Jig

So we are home again after our second big road trip. Much to report! Hopefully I'll get to it soon. Life just does not stop of course and I feel as though we hit the ground running, more like sprinting upon our return and haven't stopped yet.

Adjusting to life with one less computer and more

I've already mentioned the demise of my dearly beloved laptop. She is much mourned by M as the last remaining source of dvd viewing pleasure (the drive in P's laptop having been worn out from over-use in the months following A's birth). That means we compete to get our screentime fix from the itty-bitty HP Mini thingy. Which really means that M gets her fix (of youtube or reading eggs usually) while I'm cleaning or cooking or putting A to bed and I get mine late at night when she is finally asleep and he wakes for more milk & sleeps on my lap while I read or right now, blog.
P has quit or is in the process of quitting his main client. Which is, I must say, the best news I've heard in a long time. The house feels different already. The children are enjoying having two parents instead of one and a bit and I am enjoying less cooking (as well as the conversation). No doubt it will bring us a little closer to the (financial) edge than we have been used to for the past few years but it's nowhere we haven't been before and the benefits abound :)

Foster Care

Am I crazy? Fostering is something I've always wanted to do. My previous partner and I went through the application process, were approved and about to start training courses when we moved interstate. Since then I've either been concentrating on music or breeding small ones of my own. However last week I saw an ad (a rather desperate ad actually) in an op-shop and it's been eating away at me since then. Could we do it? Could our littlies handle it?
Questions questions questions

Exhale

Well, I really don't think A has measles. Thank goodness. His rash continues to fade and there has been no fever since Monday night. The mastitis is on it's way out as well, and good riddance to that!
All in all it's been a week of hermit-dom though. We've missed all our usual activities through either me being to sick to take them, wanting to quarantine A in case he was infectious and M deciding she needed a day off from ballet. Actually (sickness aside) it's been lovely. I love home days. I do feel out of touch though, I hate to admit it but I'm missing facebook. Certain people don't seem to get emails, or text messages or any other form of messages really. Oh well, I guess the trade-off for enjoying peaceful days at home is becoming a social pariah.

No pot roast

Well, at least not yesterday. It's in the oven today. Somehow I doubt A's fever was teeth related since he came out in an awful rash. We thought it might be chicken pox but to me it looks more like excema. Sigh, who knows. We haven't been off to the doc because (apart from that one hour of fever on Monday night) he has been perfectly happy and hasn't seemed sick at all.
Of course, along with a sick baby what do I always get? Mastitis. Ugh! Yesterday I was feverish and out of it all day. Hence no pot roast. I think I did well just keep the fire going and give M some pasta for dinner. Today is better but still sore and low on energy.

Tomorrow I will learn how to cook a pot roast

Or I will try at least. I deleted my facebook account, so now I'm forced to share my inanities here.
My boy is feverish too. Teeth I hope.

A special guest

A great-auntie who is truly a great Auntie. Much loved all round.